No, President Biden Didn’t Bring Pre-Written Notes to the Debate

Max Whalen
·2 min read
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A recent tweet claims that, during the June 27 CNN debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Biden violated the rules because “pre-written notes were expressly not allowed.”

While it is true that the candidates were forbidden from bringing pre-written notes, the claim that President Biden brought any of his own notes is false.

The debate was the first presidential debate since 1988 not hosted by the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), a bipartisan commission that typically coordinates and executes both the presidential and vice presidential debates in an election year.

The Republican Party announced in 2022 that it was withdrawing from the CPD. In May, both candidates said they had received and accepted invitations to debate twice, once on CNN and again on ABC in September. In June, CNN announced the rules for the first debate, which both parties agreed to. Among the changes was that there would be no live audience, the first debate without one since the first televised 1960 presidential debate between then-Vice President Richard Nixon and then-Sen. John F. Kennedy, and that candidates’ microphones would be muted unless it was their turn to speak.

In keeping with the past rules used by the CPD, CNN did not allow the candidates to bring their own pre-written notes to the debate. However, CNN stated that the candidates “will be given a pen, a pad of paper, and a water bottle.”

A CNN official told The Dispatch Fact Check via email that the pad of paper Biden was seen handling “was the [same] legal pad of paper given to each candidate.”

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